Monday, August 21, 2006

Evil Laftir!

At a party last Saturday my friends introduced me to the people I didn’t know as “an evil person.” I wasn’t quite sure whether they were joking or not, but we all know jokes are half-meant. It doesn’t really bother me if I am evil; mwhahahaha! What is really more bothersome is the fact that I’ve been unaware of this before. I guess being evil never really bothered me. Or perhaps I’ve always deluded myself into thinking that I am a morally normal person (“morally normal” meaning I am neither more moral or less moral than the average Jose).

But let’s pause for a while and examine myself. In general I do entertain lots of evil thoughts and have also said lots of things that, to put it kindly, are unkind to fellow human beings. I do delight in pointing out mistakes, foibles and stupid acts. And I have let loose words both written and spoken that are nasty and unkind; I revel in scathing humor that skewers the weak and the slow-witted.

I will fess up to all of the above. Does that make me evil? As defined by our catholic religion, yes. Evil intention (thinking) plus evil deed (talking) equals bingo! a one-way ticket to hell.

But I also noticed that I often stop short of doing an evil act that goes beyond talk. I’ve never plunged a knife into someone, nor have I ever put a bullet into someone’s head. I’ve never shoplifted nor stolen anything. I am evil but more with words than with action. If action speaks louder than words, then my kind of evil is… uhm, quieter? Duh.

Now I’m asking myself, why do I allow myself to think and talk evil? Maybe because it’s still a whole lot better to just think or talk evil but not act evil. Because if I did, there’d be a string of dead stupid drivers along EDSA today and I’d probably end up either in jail or dead on the road too. As it is, there are tens of “dead” stupid drivers with their cars “smashed” to pieces still running around the metro today, all blissfully unaware that I’d “murdered” them all in my mind. Or made fun of them here in The McVie Show.

Which reminds me, in fairness there’s not been a candidate for the Shonga Awards lately. Either stupid people have slowly been killing themselves or I’ve been lucky enough to have avoided them for the past month.

But maybe you guys have been unlucky. Do send in your entries to the Shonga Awards!

From someone who has known you for almost all your life, I say that you definitely are not evil. Nasty and unkind? Maybe, but we all are, some time or another. But evil is another category altogether. And you, my friend, do not belong there.

For me, someone like Justice Isagani Cruz is EVIL. I am a lawyer and have admired his erudite Supreme Court decisions. But I have also deplored his Inquirer columns that have ignorantly denigrated gays wholesale. News of his latest column have reached us gays here in Cambodia, and my friends and I are angry. The prejudice and hatefulness that he preaches is much more dangerous than anything that I have read on the McVie Show.

The problem with Philippine society is that it is morally confused. People see Supreme Court justices and bishops are arbiters of right and wrong, when many of these people are hypocrites and are too weak to face up to the truth of their twisted inner selves. Whereas those of us, gays and people who live on the fringes, who have the courage to speak up for the truth, in ourselves and in the larger society, are condemed for being queer and evil.

I say, the truth will set you free. Someone else said that a long time. And I bet you, He is on our side in condemning the woeful ignorance of Isagani A. Cruz.